On Track

This year has been the year of things happening that I didn't expect to happen. I broke up with my boyfriend of 4.5 years. I got my first staff job. I was asked to join a theatre company that I respect. I got into the WGA. I got some teaching gigs. And I challenged myself as a writer and wrote something incredibly personal and it worked out.

That's all good stuff. And I'm happy about it. But by nature, I'm incredibly impatient. I want to immediately move onto the next thing. But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. Life will get busy again soon enough.

As I head into the last three months of this year - the fourth quarter - I have nothing new on the horizon. I am teaching and enjoying that. I have a pilot that I wrote last year and rewrote a bit this year that I'm finishing. But, in a way, I'm playing a waiting game. I'm keeping myself busy so I don't feel like I'm just waiting. I have a play I'm also going to start researching. But I don't think I want to start anything new.

That's a completely different position than I was in for the past few years. In 2014, I needed to set up a routine for myself, so I wrote and wrote and wrote. Then I took an office. I wrote five scripts that year and about 1000 pages. That led to 2015 where I spent February through September working on one play. Then the last quarter of the year was about writing two more scripts, something I rewrote and something I was writing from scratch. I also started work on the play I wrote this year. I figured that if I wanted to be a staff writer on a show, I needed to work at that pace. I wrote 2000 pages last year.

This year started out with a plan to be even more productive. I was calling this year the Year of Challenges. I set out to write a new script every month. I did that totally self-motivated for January and February, where I rewrote a pilot and wrote a new play respectively. Then I got a job on a show and the next three months were about writing my two scripts for the show and to rewrite a play I had a reading of in May. I tried to get stuff going in June, but I was burned out. Then in July I went into production for the show. I also started an outline for the pilot I needed to rewrite. I spent August in workshops for my new play, writing a new ten-minute for a festival this month, and rewriting that pilot finally. Plus finishing production on the show. I wrote three scripts in August. September was about teaching and about thinking about this other pilot rewrite. I kept telling friends that I was burned out and had no new ideas. Then a new idea for a play popped into my head that was pretty realized. I'm going to spend the rest of the year researching that play, as well as writing and rewriting the pilot. This year I've written about 1400 pages. I'm totally good with that. That's plenty. The challenge for October, November and December is going to be setting the stage for 2017. It's going to be getting my applications done and my play out there.

Now that I've done all the work, it's now about getting the work out there, which is a completely different and frustrating part of the job. I have four excellent samples that represent who I am as a writer now. I am a writer who writes about people who are forced to adapt to their circumstances. I have written a play that's political and a play that's personal. I have written two family drama serialized pilots - one's a cable show and one's a network show. I am getting ready to write something that will feel like a streaming show that's about aspiration. This new play will be about self-exposure. I've got plenty on track, but now I need to get these meetings. I need to get an agent in addition to my manager. I need to get my work out to people. I feel ready down in my bones. Being on staff this year and being on set really cemented that belief for me and gave me confidence I never had in my abilities to think and act on the fly. And that's what working in TV is all about.

I know what I am doing. I am teaching the form of TV and Film script writing. I feel totally qualified to teach that class and I'm having fun doing it. I feel like I'm under the radar at the school and it's a great place to be. But I also know that I don't want to teach next semester. I don't want to feel like this is a safety job. I don't have a family. I don't need that kind of stability. I want to travel for fun and travel for work and fly by the seat of my pants. And if this is a flourishing, golden age of television, then I'm ready to flourish in it. I'm on track to do that.

My intention is to continue to create for the purpose of creating.
My intention is to be in love with my ideas.
My intention is to be process oriented.
My intention is to be entrepreneurial.
My intention is to laugh every day.
My intention is to visualize and to know.
My intention is to enjoy myself.
My intention is to write and write and write and write.

I am grateful for the creative open mind I have.
I am grateful that I am like no one else out there.
I am grateful that I have projects that I am passionate about.
I am grateful that this is my life.